Airbus Military begins final assembly of the first A400M for France

Fol­low­ing the launch of A400M series pro­duc­tion last Feb­ru­ary, Air­bus Mil­i­tary has begun final assem­bly of the first A400M that will be deliv­ered to a cus­tomer –the French Air Force. The fuse­lage for this air­craft, known as MSN7, arrived at the final assem­bly line in Seville (Spain) on board an Air­bus Bel­u­ga. The wings and nose arrived some days ear­li­er and the inte­gra­tion of the cen­tral box and out­er wings has already begun. The hor­i­zon­tal tailplane (HTP) is expect­ed next week and the ver­ti­cal tailplane (VTP) in two weeks time.

A400M Source: Air­bus Mil­i­tary

A400M Source: Air­bus Mil­i­tary

France will receive its first A400M mil­i­tary air­lifter around the turn of the year 2012/2013.

Eight ser­i­al A400M air­craft are already at dif­fer­ent stages of pro­duc­tion. The pho­to­graph shows the unload­ing of the fuse­lage from an Air­bus Bel­u­ga in the A400M final assem­bly line in Seville (Spain). The addi­tion­al pic­ture attached shows the same oper­a­tion for the wings and nose of the air­craft.

About A400M

The A400M is an all-new mil­i­tary air­lifter designed to meet the needs of the world’s Armed Forces in the 21st Cen­tu­ry. Thanks to its most advanced tech­nolo­gies, it is able to fly high­er, faster and fur­ther, while retain­ing high manoeu­vra­bil­i­ty, low speed, and short, soft and rough air­field capa­bil­i­ties. It com­bines both tac­ti­cal and strategic/logistic mis­sions. With its car­go hold specif­i­cal­ly designed to car­ry the out­size equip­ment need­ed today for both mil­i­tary and human­i­tar­i­an dis­as­ter relief mis­sions, it can bring this mate­r­i­al quick­ly and direct­ly to where it is most need­ed. Con­ceived to be high­ly reli­able, depend­able, and with a great sur­viv­abil­i­ty, the mul­ti­pur­pose A400M can do more with less, imply­ing small­er fleets and less invest­ment from the oper­a­tor. The A400M is the most cost effi­cient and ver­sa­tile air­lifter ever con­ceived and absolute­ly unique in its capa­bil­i­ties.

About Air­bus Mil­i­tary

Air­bus Mil­i­tary is the only mil­i­tary and civic/humanitarian trans­port air­craft man­u­fac­tur­er to devel­op, pro­duce, sell and pro­vide sup­port and ser­vices for a com­pre­hen­sive fam­i­ly of air­lifters with a pay­load range of three to 45 tonnes. An Air­bus sub­sidiary, Air­bus Mil­i­tary is respon­si­ble for the A400M pro­gramme, the A330 Mul­ti Role Tanker Trans­port (MRTT) and fur­ther mil­i­tary deriv­a­tives based on Air­bus civ­il air­craft. These, togeth­er with the small­er ‘Light & Medi­um’ C295, CN235 and C212, make Air­bus Mil­i­tary the glob­al leader in the mar­ket for mil­i­tary trans­port, tanker and sur­veil­lance air­craft capa­ble of per­form­ing the most var­ied types of mis­sions. Alto­geth­er, Air­bus Mil­i­tary has sold more than 1,000 air­craft to some 130 mil­i­tary, civ­il and gov­ern­men­tal cus­tomers. More than 800 of these air­craft have been deliv­ered. Air­bus is an EADS com­pa­ny.